The Devil's Washbowl: Home of the Pigman?

Tony and I recently took a weekend trip up to Vermont. Our final destination was Montpelier to see an old friend, but we made a few stops along the way. Some people visit Vermont to see fall foliage and quaint towns. We wanted to see the Pigman!

The Pigman is the resident monster of Northfield, Vermont, a cute little town best known as the home of Norwich University, the oldest private military college in the United States. But if you journey outside the charming downtown and into the dense woods, according to legend you might encounter the half-human, half-porcine horror known as the Pigman. He's said to lurk most frequently in an area known as the Devil's Washbowl, a densely wooded, rocky, and remote area. 

Way back in 1971, a Northfield farmer's twenty-year old son disappeared from home. Perhaps he had run away to the big city, the police suggested. He was never found, but shortly after his disappearance various animals went missing around town as well: mostly dogs and cats. Were these things connected? 

One night a farmer heard something rummaging through his garbage cans. Thinking it was a raccoon, the farmer flicked on his outside light. It wasn't a raccoon. It was a naked man. His body was covered in short white hair, and he had the face of a pig. The man - creature? - ran off into the darkness. 

A few weeks later, during a high-school dance, four students were smoking and drinking in a sand pit behind the school. As they talked, they saw something move towards them in the night. It was a naked man with the hideous face of a pig. Terrified, the four students ran into the school gymnasium and told their friends what they had seen. A group of students ran out to see the creature, but it had vanished, leaving behind only beaten-down undergrowth as proof it had been there. 

Jeff Hatch was one of the students that rushed out to find the Pigman, and many years later he told Vermont author Joseph Citro about the creature. Citro included the legend in his book Green Mountains, Dark Tales, and in subsequent books, like Weird New England and The Vermont Monster Guide. According to Hatch, locals at first suspected the Pigman was living at a nearby pig farm (which makes sense), but many motorists that year reported seeing a strange white creature near the Devil's Washbowl, a stony hillside depression that a stream runs through. A young couple that had parked their car near the Devil's Washbowl for a romantic interlude also claimed the Pigman had attacked them, and the young man had the claw marks on his body to prove it. 

Small piles of bones and piles of hay, which seemed to have been used as bedding, were found in caves near the Devil's Washbowl, further lending credence to the idea it was the Pigman's lair. Jeff Hatch claims the police went to investigate, but never found anything. 

Some people want to see the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids. Ever since reading this story, I've wanted to see the Devil's Washbowl, so we made it a stop on our Vermont trip. Devil's Washbowl Road is easy to find on Google maps, but when we visited it was not marked by any street signs. (It looked like they had been stolen by vandals.) It's a dirt road that wends its way along a steep, wooded hillside. There are a few houses and farms along the road, but mostly you're in the woods. Devil's Washbowl Road is pretty, but it also reminded me of the beginning of a horror movie, particularly as we were two city boys out of our element. 

I had asked Joseph Citro how to find the Washbowl itself, and he told me I would see it when the road passed over a culvert. After mistakenly thinking a small stream was it, we came to the actual Devil's Washbowl. Many geologic features in New England bear the Devil's name, often because they are rough and vaguely inhospitable to humans. This is one of them. A stream runs down a rocky hillside, empties into a rocky basin, and then disappears into the woods. I haven't found a specific legend explaining the origin of the Washbowl's name, but it does look like someplace where the Devil would wash his hands after committing a nefarious deed. 

Would you go down there? We did not...

We pulled over and got out of the car to take some photos. Other than the sound of rushing water, it was very quiet. I debated climbing down into the Washbowl itself to find one of the caves, but I (wisely) decided not to. My main concerns: breaking a leg, getting Lyme disease, touching poison ivy, getting eaten by the Pigman. Four good reasons to stay near the car. And then Tony noticed a good reason to get back in the car: a big piece of animal scat, relatively fresh. Was it from a bear, or maybe a coyote? Or perhaps it was from a half-man, half-pig, humanoid monster? We didn't stick around to find out. 

Jeff Hatch seemed to think the Pigman was actually the farmer's son who went missing in 1971, who somehow devolved after living in the woods. That's the original theory, and there are a few other theories circulating these days about the creature's origin. One suggests that he is the unholy offspring of a lonely farmer and a much beloved swine. I won't comment on that one, other than to say I don't think that's how biology works.  

Another, more detailed story about the Pigman's origins seems to have appeared online around 2013. This story claims he was originally a teenager known as Sam Harris. On October 30, 1951, Sam went out to cause mischief in Northfield. The night before Halloween was called Picket Night in Northfield, and it was the designated night for kids to wax windows, egg cars, and throw toilet paper in trees. Sam left home that night but didn't return... until three years later. Sam appeared on his parents' front porch one night in 1954, naked, squealing and tossing bloody pig innards on the porch floor. The sight supposedly drove his mother to suicide (she threw herself into a pen full of ravenous hogs), and a teacher who tried to debunk the legend was found dead with the words "PICKET NIGHT" carved on her body. 

Still not going down there...

In 2014, another addition to the legend appeared online, this time from horror author William Dalphin, who grew up in Northfield. Dalphin claims that in the 1980s, a group of teenagers camping near the Devil's Washbowl encountered the Pigman, who clubbed one boy on the head and dragged him off into the woods. The boy was never seen again, except possibly by one local man who said he had seen the teenager rummaging through his trash, wearing just a pair of torn jeans. His body was covered with short white hair and his eyes had a hollow expression. Dalphin intended his story as fiction, but it has since been cited as part of the actual legend. 

Northfield is not the only place in the United States that is supposedly terrorized by a pigman. A bridge in Denton, Texas, is said to be the home of a pig-headed madman who menaces teenagers. He is either a local hunter transformed into a were-pig after being bitten by a feral hog, or he is the disfigured victim of gangsters who cut off his nose and sliced open his cheeks. Also haunting bridges are the the Pigman of Hawkinsville, Georgia, the Pigman of Angola, New York, and the Pigman of Shelby County, Tennessee, who is said to appear near the bridge at night if you shout, "Pigman" three times. A similar legend is told about Pig Lady Road in Hillsborough, New Jersey, where a monstrous Pig Lady appears if you say her name three times. 

I enjoyed my trip to the Devil's Washbowl, even if it was a little creepy. Perhaps next year I could road-trip across the country, visiting assorted haunted Pig People locations? I suppose I could, but maybe that would be pushing my luck. I should probably count myself lucky I didn't see the Pigman on our trip to Northfield. 

The Glocester Ghoul: A Monster and A Pirate in Rhode Island

A while ago I was poking around on the Internet and saw articles about a monster called the Glocester Ghoul. I had never heard of this terrifying creature before, and of course wanted to find out more. This is what I learned...

The monster supposedly lurks in the woods and swamps of Glocester, Rhode Island, a small town in the northwestern part of the state. Here's a fun fact about Glocester. Its name used to be spelled "Gloucester," like the town in Massachusetts, but in 1806 its citizens decided to change the spelling to "Glocester" to avoid confusion with the Massachusetts port. The two towns are different in other ways, as well. Gloucester, MA is haunted by witches and sea-serpents. Glocester, RI, is haunted by a large scaly monster that roams through the woods: the Glocester Ghoul. 

Image from TeePublic 

One of the earliest accounts of the monster was an article that appeared in various newspapers (including The Boston Globe) in January and February of 1896. Titled "Monster, Cow, or Ghost?," the article claims a Glocester man named Neil Hopkins encountered a monster while walking home from work one night:

"It seemed to be all a-fire; it had a hot breath," Hopkins told his neighbors. "There was a metallic sound, like the clanking of steel against steel... I could hear the dead branches and twigs crackling under the heavy tramp."

Unfortunately Hopkins only caught a brief glimpse of the creature before it ran off into the woods, but he said "it was as big as an elephant, and that he is certain it had no tail." 

The article goes on to suggest the creature may have been the same one seen seen in 1839 by Albert Hicks and three other local men. They believed Captain Kidd had buried some of his treasure on a Glocester farm and were digging to find it, but their efforts were interrupted by the appearance of a monster. Hicks described the following:

"It was a large animal, with staring eyes as big as pewter bowls. The eyes looked like balls of fire. When it breathed as it went by flames came out of its mouth and nostrils... It was as big as a cow, with dark wings on each side like a bat's. It had spiral horns like a ram's, as big around as a stovepipe. Its feet were formed like a duck's... The body was covered with scales as big as clam shells, which made a rattling noise as the beast moved along..."

That's an impressive monster, even if it's only as big as a cow, and not an elephant, like Neil Hopkins said. It sounds like some kind of dragon, doesn't it? 

Beyond the scaly monster, there are a few other interesting things about this story:

1. Treasure-digging was a common activity in the 18th and 19th centuries. People thought New England was full of buried treasure, and would get together with friends to try to find it. They never seemed to succeed, though, often saying they had been on the verge of finding the gold only to be scared off by a monstrous guardian of some kind, like demonic dogs, sinister black cats, and maybe even the Devil himself. Digging for Captain Kidd's treasure and encountering a monster would have been a familiar theme to a 19th century newspaper's readers.

2. Albert Hicks, who was digging with his friends for pirate treasure, ironically later became one of the last people in the United States to be executed as a pirate. Hicks was born in 1820 in Foster, Rhode Island, and was executed in New York in 1860 after killing three men on a small boat to steal their money. He dictated a confessional biography before his execution. In it, he claimed to have killed dozens (if not hundreds) of people as a pirate and highway robber. Hicks had a reputation as a teller of tall tales, so he may have exaggerated his victim count. 

Drawing of Albert Hicks from an 1860 newspaper (via Wikipedia).

3. Despite being fond of tall tales, there's one thing not found in Hicks's biography, The Life, Trial, Confession and Execution of Albert Hicks, and that's a large scaly monster. Hicks does mention digging for treasure when he was young, but says nothing about encountering a monster. If he had encountered a monster I'm sure it would have been in there. So perhaps this story was created by someone else?

According to folklorist Stephen Olbrys Gencarella, the story was written by a reporter for a New York newspaper, The New York World, where it was published on January 12, 1896. That reporter based their story on an earlier one that had appeared in The Providence Journal on May 5, 1889, which was titled "Glocester Gold Digging." The Journal article contains various Glocester legends, including one about six men who went digging for Captain Kidd's treasure on November 13, 1833. One of the men was indeed Albert Hicks, and the six men saw a creature that looked exactly like the one in The New York World article. The big difference between the two articles are that the men also see a meteor strike the earth before they see the monster, and it is other men who describe the monster, not Albert Hicks. Hicks only played a minor role, but The New York World reporter probably played it up to capitalize on Hick's notoriety. 

One note about that meteor: the six men took the meteor as a good omen, and didn't seem to connect it with the appearance of the monster. 

The story about the Glocester monster appeared in various newspapers in 1896, but then more or less disappeared for over a century. The story reappeared on the blog Strange New England in 2019, where the monster was given the catchy name "The Glocester Ghoul." The name seems to have stuck, and I've seen the Glocester Ghoul mentioned a few places online. You can now even buy a Glocester Ghoul tee-shirt online:

From TeePublic

I feel like every state deserves a good monster, so hopefully knowledge of the Glocester Ghoul will spread. Is there really a large, scaly creature lurking in the woods and swamps of Glocester? Probably not, but I write that from the safety of my home on a sunny summer day. I might have a different opinion if I were out in the woods at night. I don't think anyone's allegedly seen the creature since the 1800s, but if you have drop a note in the comments. I'd be curious - and a little scared - to know more...

*****

I got a lot of my information from Stephen Olbrys Gencarella's article "Lovecraft and the Folklore of Glocester's Dark Swamp," which appeared in Lovecraft Annual, No. 16 (2022), pp. 90 -127. 

A Werewolf in Natick? A Story for the Wolf Moon

On Monday, January 17, the Full Wolf Moon will rise at 4:13 pm and cast its lupine light across New England. Get out there and howl, folks! We're supposed to have a lot of rain here in Boston, so the moon may not be visible, but it will still be up in the sky even if you can't see it. 

In honor of the Wolf Moon, here is a story about a possible werewolf I found on Phantoms and Monsters. Phantoms and Monsters is a great site if you enjoy reading about paranormal encounters - check it out if you like weird tales.

The story goes something like this. In the spring of 2006, a group of friends from Natick decided to go camping. Rather than drive up to New Hampshire or out to western Massachusetts, they decided to camp closer to home. They chose a patch of woods behind some apartment buildings near an old, abandoned factory.

Oliver Reed in The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

My first thought on reading this was, "That's probably not an official camp site." My second thought was, "Camping near an abandoned factory sounds like it would be spooky." My second thought was definitely correct.

The person who submitted the story wrote:

Now before I go further I must say that my area has experienced very weird sounds. Although in my opinion, they are very un-wolf like. They sound like a woman screaming crossed with long dog barks. A very indescribable and terrible sound. They come from various directions, though usually from the apartment area. (Phantoms and Monsters)

Coyotes? Maybe, or maybe not. But strange sounds in the woods just add to the spooky vibe.

The friends set up their tents and settled in for the night. After everyone had fallen asleep, one of the campers left her tent to urinate. She felt like she was being watched, though, so she woke up her boyfriend and asked him to come with her. He also felt they were being watched as they stepped away from the tents. 

As he stood watch, the boyfriend saw something moving through the trees away from the tents. It was tall, grey, and covered in fur:

He could see it through the brush... a large (approximately 6.5-7 foot in height) man-shaped figure, covered in grayish fur, sporting wolf-like features and a bushy tail swaying behind it. He was shocked and ran into the tent, leaving his girlfriend who came running in a moment later, after hearing the rustling of the creature.

They spent the rest of the night awake in their tent, occasionally hearing strange cries in the woods. They and the other campers quickly left the woods once the morning came.  

That's the end of the story. Like most monster stories, it's pretty simple. People see monster, people freak out, monster leaves. It's as if the monster just wants to be seen and acknowledged. Maybe the monster just wants to remind us that there are still weird things lurking out there in the world, even in a patch of woods near an abandoned factory.

An abandoned factory in the woods behind some apartments sounds like a liminal space to me. A liminal space is someplace that isn't quite one thing or another, a zone between one place and another. Liminal spaces are thresholds. 

It makes sense that the campers would see a werewolf in a liminal space. A werewolf is part human and part animal. It's both these things, and yet neither. The campsite was forested but formerly industrial, it was suburban and yet wild. It's the type of place where teenagers go to do forbidden things, and where campers would see uncanny creatures. It makes sense.

Did they really see a werewolf? I can hear some of you asking that question. I am a little skeptical that there are large, physical monsters roaming around our woods. (Of course, I don't go into the woods late at night!) I don't think that means the campers made this story up, though. There are lots of middle positions between hardcore skepticism and total belief. Maybe the campers inadvertently conjured up something from deep inside their psyches, or maybe they glimpsed the spirit of that land, what the ancient Romans would call a genius loci.

Happy Wolf Moon everyone!

Stomping through the Snow with Bigfoot in 1976

We had a nice storm last Friday, getting around 10 inches of snow here in the Boston area. I made sure to strap on my boots and stomped around in the snow while it was still fresh.

Forty-five years ago, in December of 1976, someone stomped through the snow near Robinson State Park in Agawam, Massachusetts. Someone who apparently did not wear shoes. Residents of the town found bare footprints, and each footprint was 27 inches long. Someone, or something, quite large had been walking in the snow.

Many people assumed the tracks were made by Bigfoot. It was 1976, after all, and Bigfoot was a popular topic in the mass media. Bigfoot tracks were being seen all across the country. A documentary about the mysterious humanoid, In Search of Bigfoot, had played in movie theaters around the US, and a bionic Bigfoot (from outer space!) had been featured on The Six Million Dollar Man, a popular TV show.  So perhaps it was inevitable that Bigfoot would even appear in Massachusetts. 

Ted Cassidy as Bionic Bigfoot in The Six Million Dollar Man

The Agawam police took the footprints seriously, sending out a "Bigfoot team" to investigate. Bigfoot hunters, who were less common in 1976 than they are now, also came to town. At least one of them, Lee Frank, was invited by a concerned Agawam citizen.

"The prints look good - but "Bigfoot" tracks are a dime a dozen...we really need to see him," said Lee Frank, who reportedly travels all over the United States investigating sightings of the legendary animal.

Frank and other trackers spent Wednesday night camping in zero temperatures beside the footprints in the snow, but failed to spot a 7 to 12-foot monster on the prowl by Westfield River. "Bigfoot" investigators also planned to spend Thursday camping in the woods in hopes of spotting the big fellow.

"Whatever the tracks are, they merit further investigation," Frank said, adding that it is impossible to determine at this point how the tracks were made." ("'Bigfoot' Eludes Team On Overnight Campout", Morning Union (Springfield, Massachusetts), December 31, 1976, from Bigfoot Encounters).

The Agawam police were unsure if the footprints were really made by Bigfoot, or if they were a hoax. It turns out they were a hoax. In early January, the police confiscated two large plywood feet from David Deschenes, a 16-year old Agawam resident. 

"I did it as a joke for the little kids around here, but it got out of hand. The next thing I knew the police were out at two in the morning looking around, taking it seriously. I didn't feel like going out to tell them I was 'bigfoot'", Deschenes said. ("Bigfoot Sorry About Stepping On Law," Kenosha (Wisconsin) News, January 6, 1977, from Bigfoot Encounters).

I find hoaxes really interesting, because even if they are not strictly true, they illustrate what people think might be true. So while Bigfoot was not really running around Agawam, people were willing to think he was. David Deschenes was just enacting something his neighbors thought might be possible. The people in 1976 weren't that different from previous generations of New England residents, many of whom also believed large hairy humanoids were running around the region. They called them "wild men" instead of Bigfoot, although, if real, they were equally tricky and elusive as their modern counterpart. 

David Deschenes may have been a hoaxer, but he was also a trend-setter. In 1977, the company K-Tel produced and marketed plastic Bigfoot snowshoes for children. Kids all across the nation were soon leaving Bigfoot tracks in the snow, just like David had. I wanted these as a kid, but never bought them! I should have followed David's lead and just made my own.

Bottomless Ponds of New England: Monsters, Witches, and Dead Horses

I read a lot of books about local legends and folklore, and have discovered some weird things. I recently learned there are several bottomless lakes and ponds here in New England. Yes, you read that correctly. There are several bodies of water here that are immeasurably deep. And some have monsters in them...

One of these bottomless bodies of water is Hall's Pond in Brookline. Hall's Pond is located just off Beacon Street, one of the Boston area's busiest thoroughfares, and you can even take the Green Line trolley to it. Very convenient!

The pond is now part of Amory Park, and there is a nice boardwalk that leads you around it. The last time I visited it was teeming with fish, turtles, and birds. Hall's Pond used to be much larger and swampier, and is actually the remains of an ancient cedar swamp. The soil is quite peaty, and creates an oily sheen on the water. 

Hall's Pond in Brookline

The January 28, 1902 proceedings of the Brookline Historical Society, include the following information about the development of Amory Park:

The town's purchase was about eight acres, which includes a part of Hall's Pond, the dreaded hole and terror of youngsters, which was believed to be bottomless.

The 1954 - 1955 proceedings of the Society include the following reminiscence from one Mrs. Luquer:

The story goes that, in my childhood, one dark night, a man with his horse and buggy went down what he thought was Essex Street straight down to Beacon Street right down into Hall's Pond where there was quicksand and he was never seen again. I remember I often skated on the Pond and always wondered whether I was over the horse and buggy.

It's a grim story, but not as terrifying as the stories told about Dublin Lake in Dublin, New Hampshire. According to a July 26, 2017 issue of the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, in the early 20th century people thought the lake was bottomless. More contemporary legends say it is the home of hideous monsters who live in underwater caves:

Lore surrounding the lake monster dates back to the 1980s, when a free-diver allegedly went missing after a routine dive. The diver was found a number of days later, naked and incoherently babbling about monsters. 

Another version of the story states a diver was using a diving bell when exploring the lake’s bottom, but the tether was not long enough as he descended. 

After heading down deeper to find the caverns, the diver disappeared. A group of hikers found the diver in the woods naked days later, with the diver once again was babbling about monsters. ("The search for the Dublin Lake Monster," Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, July 26, 2017)

I think the whole "naked diver babbling insanely about monsters" is pretty creepy. Perhaps those monsters are from another planet, because another legend claims there is a spaceship or UFO at the bottom of the lake. 

Dinglehole, a small pond in Millis, Massachusetts, is also believed to be bottomless. Much like Hall's Pond, Dinglehole was once larger and swampier. In the 18th and 19th century, legends said it was haunted by a headless ghost who misled travelers. People also heard the ringing of a mysterious bell near the pond, giving it the name Dinglehole. (The bell went "dingle dingle dingle.")

Hall's Pond in Brookline

A headless ghost and mysterious bell are bad enough, but the the Devil and his witches would gather near Dinglehole to celebrate the Witches Sabbath. The witches arrived in the shape of weasels, raccoons, and other small woodland animals. 

One evening, a local hunter was walking home when he noticed a large raccoon watching him from a tree. Unable to resist such an easy target, the hunter shot the raccoon and hit it squarely in the chest. Nothing happened to the raccoon. It sat there unharmed. Did the hunter notice a slight smirk on its face? He fired several more shots, each time hitting the raccoon, which continued to ignore the bullets.

Finally, it dawned on the hunter that this was no ordinary animal. He plucked a branch from a nearby witch hazel shrub, a plant known for its magical powers, and fired it from his rifle like a small harpoon. It hit the raccoon in the face. The animal then vanished. Several days later, the hunter learned that Murky Mullen, a local woman suspected of witchcraft, had an unexplained injury on her face. Clearly, she (or her spirit) had been wandering the woods in the shape of a raccoon. (That story appears in Ephraim Orcutt Jameson and George James La Croix's 1886 book The History of Medway, Mass. 1713-1885.)

Hall's Pond, Dublin Lake and Dinglehole are just three bottomless bodies of water I learned about while researching other things. I assume there are probably others out there in New England. Of course, modern science says a bottomless pond or lake is an impossibility. After all, the center of our planet is hot and molten. If a lake reached all the way down to Earth's molten core it would probably be some kind of volcano, not a nice body of water you can swim in or skate on. 

I suspect the idea of a bottomless lake reflects an older view of the world, one in which the universe was filled with water. We now know that our planet is a sphere floating in the void of outer space. Many earlier civilizations believed the world was a flat disc that floated in an infinite abyss of water. For example, in the Babylonian creation myth, the only two beings that exist at the beginning of time are Apsu, the primal god of fresh water, and Tiamat, the dragon goddess of the sea. There is no land. It only appears after Apsu and Tiamat are slain and the god Marduk divides the waters using Tiamat's corpse. 

A similar situation is seen in the Biblical Book of Genesis, where God separates the waters from the waters during the creation of the world. There is water above the world, and water below the world.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

So in a traditional Biblical view, the world looks something like this:

The Earth is surrounded by water, both above and below. This is alluded to in the Flood story, where not only are the "windows of heaven" opened to make it rain, but "all the fountains of the great deep broken up" as well. God is letting all the primal waters back in, returning the world to its primal state of chaos. 

I think local legends about bottomless bodies of water might reflect this older cosmology, even if accidentally. The ponds and lakes in these stories are not only immeasurably deep, but they are also associated with terrifying things. Dead men and dead horses, lost in the middle of the night. Monsters so hideous they cause insanity. Witches, ghosts, and even the Devil himself. The forces of chaos are lurking just below the surface, ready to drag the unwary down into the fathomless waters. These things are probably just lurking in our subconscious, not in the water, but I'd still be careful. You don't want to wander too far from shore and get in over your head. Who knows what you might find there?

*****

I wanted to give you an update on my new book, Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts. I got my author's copies the other day, and they look great. I'm really excited for people to read this one. 

It's currently available for pre-order on Bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, Amazon, and most other places you buy books. It will be available on September 1, just in time for the fall and spooky season. 

Bigfoot At the Cemetery Gates

I love Bigfoot stories, and the weirder they are the more I like them. Here is a particularly spooky one from Rehoboth, Massachusetts. I first heard it on the Unsolved Mysteries podcast episode "The Creatures of Hockomock Swamp," but it appeared in the local news before that. 

*****

In the spring of 2019, thirty-seven year-old Tracy Manzella was visiting her parents at their Rehoboth home. Tracy and her siblings had grown up in the house, which is situated on a very woodsy road. As a child, Tracy had always felt like something in the woods was watching her whenever she was outside, but she never saw anything strange. 

Rehoboth sits within the fabled Bridgewater Triangle, and although Tracy was aware of the legends and paranormal sightings associated with the Triangle she had never seen anything strange herself. Members of her family had seen strange lights in the sky or near their house, but not Tracy. Not until that cold, drizzly, spring day in 2019

Tracy had gone for a run on the country roads near her parents' house. As she made her way back, she passed by an old cemetery that sits nestled in the woods about fifty feet from the road. She had gone by it countless times before, but this time as she ran by she saw something very strange. An enormous creature stood in front of the cemetery gates.

Image from the film Abominable (2006)

The creature was humanoid, and covered in stringy red hair. It was massively built, with broad shoulders and a broad chest. It was also really, really tall. Tracy estimated it must have stood fifteen feet high. It reminded her of an ogre or a troll.

What stood out most about this fantastic creature, though, was its face. Although it was not close to the road, Tracy could see fangs, and its gray-skinned face was demonic-looking. She sensed that the creature was evil. 

Tracy was terrified. She was afraid the creature would notice her and chase after her. Luckily it didn't. Tracy ran back to her parents' house, where she drew a picture for her mother of what she had seen. 

She has not seen anything strange since then. In October, 2020, Tracy Manzella told a Taunton Gazette reporter the following:

"It's the last experience in the Bridgewater Triangle that I would have personally wanted to have. Not because of how scary it was, or unsettling, but simply because of all of the legends of the Bridgewater Triangle that I have read about over the years or learned about. To me, the Bigfoot sightings always seemed like the most ridiculous and far-fetched of all of the things that people have seen," she said. "...I just feel like this particular experience is so outlandish that it's hard to believe if someone tells you that this is what they've seen." ("Exploring the Bridgewater Triangle: Our reporter and photographer head out when the lights go down and the legends come out," The Enterprise, October 27, 2020).

In some ways, her encounter seems like a typical Bigfoot sighting: a large hairy humanoid was briefly seen in the woods. On the other hand, the creature was really big, even for Bigfoot. Fifteen feet tall is enormous! The fangs, demonic face, and overall evil vibe are also atypical for Bigfoot sightings. 

Local paranormal investigator Christopher Pittman was quoted in the podcast, saying that almost everyone who reports seeing a Bigfoot in the Bridgewater Triangle describes something slightly different. Witnesses describe creatures of different heights, with different colored fur, and a variety of faces. None of them are the same. So perhaps there isn't a typical Bigfoot encounter, even in relatively small area like the Bridgewater Triangle. 

I don't think that Bigfoot is a physical animal, although many people would disagree with me. I think people who encounter Bigfoot are probably having a mystical experience of some kind, and that Bigfoot is a land spirit or genius loci, as the Romans would call it. The Romans and Greeks believed the wilderness was haunted by satyrs, centaurs, and nymphs. In America, we believe it's haunted by a large hairy humanoid. 

The fact that Tracy saw the giant creature near a cemetery also seems significant somehow, as does its menacing appearance. Cemeteries are of course believed to host to a variety of supernatural beings, including ghosts, vampires, and occasionally demons, but the way this creature blocked the cemetery gate immediately made me think it was some type of guardian.

In several European cultures, people believe that a cemetery is guarded by the spirit of the first being buried there. In many cases the guardian will be a human spirit, but sometimes it might be the spirit of an animal that was killed and buried explicitly for this purpose. For example, in England cemeteries are often guarded by spectral black dogs (called church grims) which are believed to be the ghosts of dogs killed and buried there. Cemetery guardians need not be so specific, either. A local friend of mine will pour out water or leave a coin for the guardian when he visits a cemetery, but I think he just considers the guardian the spirit of the place, not the soul of the first creature buried there. 

So did Tracy Manzella see the cemetery's guardian spirit? I really don't know, and it's not something that can be proven, but the creature's size, position and terrifying visage certainly would prevent anyone from entering that graveyard. It's just speculation on my part, and I certainly don't think the first being buried in the cemetery was a fifteen-foot demonic creature. She may have experienced something else entirely, but I enjoy tying these modern paranormal encounters with older streams of myth and folklore.   

A Lizard Man in Norton, Massachusetts

It happened on a warm night in the summer of 2001. A young man was working late at a store in his hometown of Norton, Massachusetts. At 11:30 pm he locked up and started to walk home.

He lived just a mile away, so even though it was quite dark he took a shortcut through the woods. It was a route he had taken many times before without incident. But tonight would be different. 

The path through the woods was dimly lit by distant streetlights. Partway down the path the man yawned, and was terrified to hear something roaring as if in response. It sounded like a large animal. He froze. In the dim light he saw someone, or rather something, emerge from behind a tree. The creature was nearly 8 feet tall and reptilian in nature, resembling a lizard with a man's face. It was powerfully built and looked like it could "have ripped the witness limb from limb if it wanted to." 

Photo from Spawn of the Slithis (1978)

This is all pretty weird, but here's where it gets weirder. As the young man stood there, terrified, he suddenly saw a flash of bright light in the sky. When he looked back at the tree the lizard creature was gone. Stranger still, the young man's watch said it was 1:45 a.m. More than an hour had passed and he didn't know what had occurred in that missing time. 

*****

That's the end of the story. It appears in Albert Rosales's book Humanoid Encounters: 2000 - 2009, and Rosales found the story online on a site called "Your True Tales." There are lots of interesting things about this story.

First of all, it's about a lizard man, which is pretty amazing. Lizard men do pop up in North American folklore and cryptozoology now and then; the most famous is the Lizard Man of Bishopville, North Carolina who was seen in that town for several years beginning in 1986. There aren't many stories from New England about lizard men, though. This one's kind of an anomaly.

The Lizard Man of Bishopville appeared in swampy areas. So did this one. Norton, Massachusetts has lots of swamps within its boundaries, including parts of the infamous 16,000 acre Hockomock Swamp. The Hockomock Swamp is the center of an area called the Bridgewater Triangle, which is famous for its paranormal activity. Norton sits squarely inside that triangle, so perhaps its not totally surprising a reptilian humanoid would appear in a giant swamp also known for its ghosts, UFO sightings, and Sasquatch encounters. 

So are there lizard monsters hibernating in the muddy swamps of Norton? Maybe, but maybe not. The strange flash of light and the missing time at the end of the story seem to indicate the creature is not really of this world. After all, strange lights and missing time are often associated with UFOs, not animals that live in the woods. If the Norton lizard man was just a physical creature he would have trudged off, not disappeared in a flash of light. 

Personally, I'd call the police or at least Animal Control if I encountered a large lizard creature. This person didn't, which is perhaps why this story is not that well known. Also, lots of weird things are said to happen in the Bridgewater Triangle. Giant snakes, phantom panthers, strange lights, Bigfoot, pukwudgies. If it's paranormal it's probably happened there. In another place or another time a lizard man would probably stand out. In the Bridgewater Triangle he's just another guest at the party. 

A Werewolf in Pawtucket, Rhode Island

Many, many years ago when I was a small child I saw Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) on some local TV station. Although this movie is a very broad comedy, I was still really scared by the monsters in it, particularly by the Wolfman. I was probably five years old so maybe this is understandable, or maybe I was just a really cowardly kid. Regardless, the Wolfman was portrayed by Lon Chaney Jr., and his transformation from a mild-mannered human to a hirsute and ferocious monster terrified me. 

Lon Chaney Jr. in Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein

He was also the most sympathetic of the movie's monsters, though, so I was also fascinated. Once I got over my fear of werewolves I learned to love stories about them. Sabine Baring Gould's The Book of Werewolves (1865) is a good source for European legends, as is Montague Summers's The Werewolf in Legend and Lore (1933). Both of those are easily available, but sadly, there isn't too much written about New England werewolves. Maybe that's because we don't have a lot of werewolves here, which could be a good thing depending on how you feel about ravening monsters.

The word werewolf comes from an Old English term, werwulf, or man-wolf, and refers to a human who can transform into a wolf. The reasons for this ability vary in old legends and include things like curses, deals with the Devil, or witchcraft. The idea that someone can become a werewolf after being bitten or scratched by one is a more recent pop culture innovation. Lycanthropy (the fancy term for werewolfism) was originally considered a moral condition, not an infectious disease. 

There are lots of New England legends about people transforming into animals, but they're usually about witches, and witches don't like to change into wolves. Witches prefer to transform into more discrete animals like birds, cats, and even horses. It's easier to cause mischief that way. No one suspects an innocent-looking bird but people are pretty suspicious when a wolf shows up. Still, during the Salem witch trials Tituba confessed to seeing cats, birds and wolves in the company of witches, implying that these were either demons or witches in animal form. 

That's not the only local connection between witches and wolves. There is also an obscure legend that one of Cape Ann's Dogtown witches, Daffy Archer, may have been a werewolf or had one at her command. You can read more about the Dogtown werewolf here. 

Some of New England's other werewolf legends come from French-Canadian immigrants, who brought stories of the loup-garou with them from Quebec. A loup-garou is someone, usually male, who has signed a deal with the Devil and can transform into a wolf. They are scary and dangerous, but happily can be repelled by prayer and religious symbols, as this tale from Vermont shows. 

Those stories are over a hundred years old, but I just read another werewolf account, and it's relatively recent. It appears in Albert Rosales book Humanoid Encounters: 2000 - 2009. According to Rosales, on December 16, 2008, four students in Pawtucket, Rhode Island decided to take a walk in the woods after finishing their exams. They followed an old waterway deeper and deeper into the woods. As they walked it became increasingly quiet. 

Noticeably quiet. No birds. No squirrels. No breeze.

Scarily quiet.

The students suddenly became aware that they were not alone. Someone - or rather something - was in the woods with them. The creature was about six feet tall. It stood upright like a man, but had the head of a wolf. The students stood still in terror, petrified that the creature would approach them. 

The wolf creature looked around, sensing it was not alone, but did not see the students. Finally it ran off further into the trees and was lost to sight. After waiting to make sure it was really gone the students left the woods. One of the witnesses was convinced the creature was a werewolf. 

What did the others think it was if not a werewolf? Rosales's book doesn't say. It also doesn't include some details that would be useful, like how old the students were or their names. Still, I'm happy to find another local werewolf story to add to my collection. This reads like a classic paranormal encounter: the journey out of consensus reality into the woods, the eerie expectant stillness, the advent of a strange entity, and the return back to the normal world. 

The moral aspects of older werewolf stories are missing here. There's no witchcraft or deal with the Devil. Instead, we just have some young folks who have an encounter with a monstrous being in the woods. The lesson is not a moral one, but rather an ontological one: there are still monsters lurking out in the trees. 

Social Distancing, Bigfoot, and a Night-time Theft in Brimfield

Social distancing. It's the phrase on everyone's lips these days - and I hope those lips are hidden behind a mask. Maintaining a safe distance from others is one of the ways we can help end the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Public health experts have been doing their best to spread the social distancing gospel, and they have an unusual ally helping them: Bigfoot. The ever-elusive cryptid has become the unofficial poster boy for social distancing. 

It makes perfect sense. After all, have you ever been closer than six feet to a Sasquatch? Probably not. When someone gets too close to Bigfoot he runs away. Or maybe he throws a boulder. Either way, he doesn't want to catch COVID-19. 

Shortly after the pandemic started in the U.S. I started seeing "Bigfoot: Social Distancing Champion" memes showing up in my social media. I don't know who first created it but the meme has really taken off this spring. Here are just a few samples:

You can buy "Bigfoot: Social Distancing Champion" tee-shirts online, and there is even a Bigfoot: Social Distancing Champion running challenge to benefit U.S. food banks. All participants run on their own, unlike traditional road races.

There are also quite a few videos out there. My favorite is this one from Gatorland, an alligator theme park outside of Orlando. The park's new mascot is Social Distancing Skunk Ape, which is the Florida term for Bigfoot. He's insistent you stay distant! 

Bigfoot's social distancing even made news here in Massachusetts. In April, Brimfield resident Tod Disotell reported that a six-foot tall Bigfoot statue had been stolen from his front yard. Disotell, an anthropologist who has appeared on Spike TV's show 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty, had been adorning the statue with face masks and signs encouraging social distancing. 

From Twitter

Disotell's statue became something of a local attraction, but was stolen the night of April 22. Security camera footage showed two hooded figures cutting a security chain before absconding with the statue. Happily, police located the statue a few days later in downtown Worcester. Bigfoot is now back in Disotell's front yard to encourage people to maintain social distancing. 

People use the symbol of Bigfoot in all kinds of ways. Corporations put him in a lot of ads, but I find his non-commercial appearances more interesting. During the insanely snowy winter of 2015 (aka Snowmageddon), a Somerville, Massachusetts man in a Yeti costume became an internet sensation. In 2017, a marijuana leaf-covered Bigfoot gained brief fame as Pot Sasquatch. And last fall,  a small Vermont town learned that construction on a bridge was delayed due to Bigfoot. The big monster doesn't usually say much but people find lots of ways to make this shy, quiet cryptid speak for them.

The real Bigfoot hasn't said anything about this current fame, but that's probably because he's out in the woods social distancing. He's setting a good example for all of us. 

*****

Tune into Midnight Society radio this Thursday, June 18 to hear me talk with host Tim Weisberg about cryptids, witchcraft, and other weird New England themes. The show airs live from 10:00 pm - 1:00 am Eastern time. It will be a spooky good time!

Monsterland: Legends, Evidence, and Bigfoot in Leominster, Massachusetts

Although many of my posts about older folklore, I like new folklore as well. It's called paranormal encounters or urban legends these days, but I'm always happy to read about UFOs, hauntings, and encounters with strange cryptids. Sometimes these modern stories are just as weird and scary as the demon-obsessed tales of the 17th century.

Ronny LeBlanc's 2016 book Monsterland discusses legends, paranormal phenomena, and general weirdness in Leominster, Massachusetts. As you can tell by the title, it also includes some monster sightings, and here's a particularly creepy story that appears in it. 

Way back in the 1950s, a man entered a Leominster bar on a warm summer night. He was visibly agitated, and when the manager asked him why the man said he had just seen a "terrifying monster" on the Old Mill Road near the railroad bridge. He asked the manager to call the police to investigate.

Image from the 2018 film Primal Rage: Bigfoot Reborn.

The manager made the phone call and the police said they were on their way. As the man waited for them to arrive he became more and more agitated. Finally, he said he couldn't wait for the police any longer. He was going to go kill the monster himself and bring back its body as proof.

He rushed out of the bar. When the police arrived the manager told them the man had gone to find the monster on his own. The officers drove down to Old Mill Road and found the man's car parked by the side of the road with its lights on. No one was inside. The woods were very dark, so rather than risk getting lost they decided to wait for the man to return. They waited. They waited longer. They waited and waited.

But the man never came back.

After this incident that part of Leominster was nicknamed Monsterland. People reported seeing apelike creatures and finding large humanoid footprints in the ground. Others said their car engines would mysteriously die in the area. Teenagers partied at the railroad bridge party and tried to see the monster. You can see a 2009 video of Old Mill Road and the railroad bridge here.

The woods abutting Old Mill Road now have some condo developments in them, but the legend of Monsterland (and maybe even the monster itself) still lives on. Large areas of Leominster remain undeveloped, including over 4,000 acres in Leominster State Forest.

One way to determine if a story is legend is by how vague the details are. Legends take place on "warm summer night," not on a specific day. Their protagonists are identified generically, like "the man" in the Leominster monster story. They don't have specific names. Legends are vague and archetypal: a warm summer night, a monster, and a man who never came back.

But is there ever any truth behind legends like this one? On June 27, 2010, Bill and Julie Penning took hike in the Leominster woods. As they walked towards their destination (a local reservoir) they heard something moving around in the trees near the trail. Branches crunched. It sounded like a large animal. They assumed it was a deer, but both got a "weird feeling." They kept hiking until the realized they were lost and decided to turn back.

When they got back to area where they heard the animal they got a big surprise:

“We had just been there, and when we came back there were footprints, with five toes, and at least three and a half inches deep in the mud, they were some serious tracks,” Bill said. 

The Pennings both experienced an eerie feeling and decided they wanted to get out of the area. 

“Where it was early spring there was a lot of brush and berries around us, but not a sound could be heard by anything, no birds, or other animals, just a weird feeling,” Julie said. 

Bill said he felt disorientated, and they both spent more time trying to find a way out due to the feelings they had. ("A Sighting Unseen," Leominster Champion, January 13, 2012)

The Pennings contacted LeBlanc, and they returned to the woods to make a plaster cast of the footprints. The foot prints were about ten inches long and much wider than a normal human foot. The depth of the prints indicated they were made by a very heavy creature and the gait was not like that of a human.

Ronny LeBlanc (left), with Bill and Julie Penning in Leominster.

LeBlanc and the Pennings eventually wound up on an episode of Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot, and the experience of seeing the tracks spurred LeBlanc to write Monsterland. He later went on to star in the Travel Channel's Expedition Bigfoot in 2020.

So is there really a monster living in the forests of Leominster? Scientists would tell us no, and it's important to listen to scientists (particularly right now during this pandemic). There's no conclusive evidence indicating large hominids are living in New England. 

However, people have been seeing large hairy monsters in this area for centuries, and I think the Pennings did encounter something. I just don't know what it was. Personally, I don't think Bigfoot (or whatever the Leominster monster is) is an animal. Maybe he's some weird manifestation of our subconscious, maybe he's the spirit of the landscape, or maybe he's visiting from another dimension. And maybe, when I get my courage up, I'll visit Monsterland and find out. 

Pickets, Cabbages, and the Pigman: Halloween Lore

I used to have a neighbor from Detroit, Michigan. One day in the fall while we were discussing the neighborhood trick-or-treaters he told me that he wasn't a big fan of Halloween.

When he was a kid in Detroit the night before Halloween was called Devil's Night, and it was a night for arson and vandalism. Teenagers would light fires across the city and burn down abandoned buildings, of which there were a lot at the time. In 1984, there were more than 800 fires in Detroit on October 30. Yikes! Happily things have gotten much better since then and in 2018 there were only four fires on Devil's Night.

His experience in Detroit was much different from mine growing up in the 1970s in Haverhill, Massachusetts. The night before Halloween didn't have a special name or any activities (criminal or otherwise) associated with it. Kids might pull some pranks on Halloween night itself (egging houses, throwing toilet paper in trees) but nothing as serious as arson. The main focus was on trick-or-treat (before it was banned because of a poison candy scare) and Halloween parties. And it was definitely only a one day celebration. There were no other days with special names.

Vintage photo from this site.

I assumed that's how things always were but I was wrong. Like all holidays Halloween changes and evolves over time. When my mother was a child in Haverhill during the 1940s there were three nights of activity around Halloween. Three! Here's an account by Charles W. "Charlie" Turner that appeared in The Haverhill Gazette's October 27, 2005 issue. Charlie's looking back nostalgically to his childhood in the Acre, a dense urban neighborhood in Haverhill:

"It all began on October 28, which was known as Cabbage Night. ... Many families raised cabbages in their gardens and young men went there to steal them. Afterwards, they raced through the streets throwing the plants at houses along the way. Ma warned me to stay away from the windows just in case..." 

"The second night, Oct. 30, was called Beggars-Night. This was the night when children put on their costumes and went from door to door in search of treats. ..." 

"On Oct. 31, Halloween came and most everybody stayed home. This was the night for mischief ... a return to those places that ignored a child's request for a treat. Most of the time it was cut clotheslines and soaped windows in our neighborhood. However, on the other side of Main Street, things could be worse. There were broken windows, messes on porches, and even an occasional tipped car." 

It turns out that special names for either Halloween or the days surrounding it were once common across the country. Most of them were coined after the pranks that kids pulled. Baltimore had Moving Night (because you moved things out of your neighbor's yard), Ohio had Doorbell Night (because of ring and run) and Vermont had Clothesline Night (because you'd throw toilet paper on clotheslines).

Are any of those special names for Halloween or the days surrounding it still in use today? Well, I think the citizens of Northfield, Vermont still observe Picket Night on October 30, when kids steal pickets from fences.

I know this because Northfield is supposedly home to one of New England's creepiest monsters: the Pigman! This porcine terror is associated with Picket Night and Halloween. According to one version of the legend, on October 30, 1951 a high school student named Sam Harris left his house for some Picket Night fun. He was planning to egg houses, throw toilet paper, and steal pickets with some friends. But he never showed up at the rendezvous point to meet his friends, and he never went back to his parents' house either. Sam Harris was never seen again. It was as if he vanished into thin air.

Did he vanish, or was he transformed? Later that fall someone (or something?) strange was seen in the woods outside town. It had the body of man but the head of a hideous pig. People in Northfield whispered that it was really Sam Harris and that he had sold his soul to the Devil. He had become a hideous pigman. 

Image from American Horror Story.

The town historian responded to these rumors with a column in the local paper. There were no such things as monsters, she wrote, and Sam Harris had been a good boy and a model citizen. But the day after the column was published the historian was found murdered in the Devil's Washbowl, a desolate area in the woods. The words "PICKET NIGHT" were carved into her flesh. The message was clear: the Pigman was real. Something monstrous and piglike is still said to be lurking in the woods outside Northfield to this day...

How's that for a story? There are several different legends associated with the Pigman but that one is particularly creepy and very appropriate for Halloween. It's nice to know that weird old folklore is still being celebrated in New England. Have a safe and happy holiday but whatever name you celebrate it!

Slipperyskin: Bear, Monster, or Spirit?

If you've ever encountered a bear out in the woods you know they can be pretty scary. But do you know what's even scarier than a bear? A super-intelligent bear. One that is sly, tricky and really hates humans.

People in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom were supposedly harassed by such a creature in the 1700s. The Wabanaki Indians called him Wejuk or "wet skin" because he always slipped away when they tried to capture him. Following the Wabanaki lead the the English settlers called him Slipperyskin.

Slipperyskin caused a lot of trouble. He knocked over fences, terrorized livestock, and ruined cornfields. Those are probably things any ordinary bear might do, but Slipperyskin was no ordinary bear. He was a very intelligent and tricky bear, so he also put rocks into maple syrup buckets and farm machinery. He once rolled a log at hunters who were chasing hime. He even threw stones at small children walking to school. Bears don't have opposable thumbs so I'm not sure how he accomplished this.

It was pretty obvious Slipperyskin didn't like humans. The feeling was mutual and many attempts were made to catch or kill the pesky bear. None were ever successful but at least one was quite humorous. In the early 1800s Vermont governor Jonas Galusha came up with a scheme to trap Slipperyskin. The governor doused himself with female bear scent and walked into the woods, hoping to lure Slipperyskin into a clearing where hunters waited with rifles. Mere minutes after heading into the woods the governor ran into the clearing chased by an amorous Slipperyskin. The hunters fled in panic at the sight of the giant lustful bear. Governor Galusha escaped with his life but sustained severe damage to his dignity.

Although he was quite a terror Slipperyskin never killed anyone but he was once accused of eating a minister. One day a group of ministers were picnicking on the shores of Westmore's Lake Willoughby when the bear emerged from the bushes with a furious roar. The holy men fled in all directions as the ursine horror attacked their picnic lunch.

After Slipperyskin departed they returned to the picnic ground. All of the ministers were present expect one. The ministers looked with dread upon the picnic blanket where a mass of torn clothes and amorphous biological matter hinted at the grim fate of their missing companion. It was clear the bear had killed and devoured him. However, closer examination later showed the disgusting mess to be half-eaten cheese and not a human corpse. Their missing companion was later found alive and well. Under the cover of the bear attack he had secretly fled an unhappy life in Vermont and set up a new one in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

Vermonters stopped seeing Slipperyskin in the early 1800s but his legend lives on. Some of the stories about him, like those with the governor and the ministers, are pretty humorous and I wonder how seriously we're supposed to take the stories about this clever and infuriating bear. Was he even real? After all, bears don't normally do the things Slipperyskin did. 

Some Bigfoot researchers think the stories are really garbled accounts of Sasquatch encounters but I'm not entirely convinced. I think the Wabanaki would be able to reliably identify a bear, as would the English frontiersmen who were settling in Vermont. And besides, does it make sense to explain away a legendary bear with a legendary hairy humanoid?

There's a big chance Slipperyskin might just be a tall-tale people told to amuse each other. Still, folks in New England have been encountering weird things in the woods for centuries, and often those weird things throw rocks and cause mischief. They ruin farm machinery and cause trouble in bars. At different times people have called them witches, demons, poltergeists, Bigfoot, or even Slipperyskin. Maybe they're all just different manifestations of some strange phenomenon associated with this corner of the country.

Think of it this way. Perhaps Slipperyskin was just one manifestation of the New England genius loci, which is a Latin term meaning "spirit of a place." Maybe this clever bear was just a particularly cranky version of the spirit of this stony and wooded corner of the country. Then again, does it make sense to explain away a legendary Vermont bear with a concept from ancient Roman religion? Maybe not but it's interesting to consider. 

*****

I first learned about Slipperyskin in books by Vermont's Joseph Citro. A great source of information about him is this article in The Northland Journal.